


On Impermanence: Riley

by viggorlijah



Series: On Impermanence [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viggorlijah/pseuds/viggorlijah





	On Impermanence: Riley

_If we lived forever, if the dews of Adashino never vanished, if the crematory smoke on Toribeyama never faded, men would hardly feel the pity of things. The beauty of life is in its impermanence. Man lives the longest of all living things... and even one year lived peacefully seems very long. Yet for such as love the world, a thousand years would fade like the dream of one night."_

_Kenko Yoshida, Essays in Idleness (1330-1332)_

 

* * *

 

Sun beats down on his skin. His shorts are wet but they'll dry while he works. The rock here hangs over a bend in the river, too slippery for anything but bare feet. He takes off his flip-flops carefully. Graham made them from one of the plane tires and some string. They're saving the boots for marching.

He needs both his hands to climb the rock so he slips the spear through the back loops of his shorts. Makes a mental note to improve the shaft, add something to tie it with. Something for Ming to work on before the ammo runs out.

The rock's huge and sheared flat at the top. He can see tiny fossils etched in the surface as he climbs and he concentrates on them. Back of his mind is busy calculating - age, type of rock, local geography, Mayan rituals - but the sun is warm on his shoulder blades. All his body hair's bleached in this light, his skin's golden brown and he feels good. Not the hyper-pumped drug good he's been used to, but the way he was in basic training. Climbing with easy grace, smiling because it's good to be here, to be alive.

At the top of the rock, he turns around slowly. They had paper maps as backup to the electronics which got trashed, but there's been heavy rain and they've learnt not to trust them. From here, he can see the hills. Clear blue sky - and god, where did they find a blue that intense? - and the hills in shadows of green, fading out far away. Flashes of bronze where the jungle breaks to show the river. A tendril of smoke, far off near the western hills. His face doesn't change when he sees it. Another fire. They're getting closer.

He climbs down the underside of the rock, finds a water-worn ridge that he can crouch on. Brings out the string bag tied to his belt, his army knife on the loop next to it. Rests his arm lightly against his shoulder, the spear held loosely. Waits.

Maggie taught him how to spear fish.

Eight of them out on rotating field training. One week in camp, one week airlifted to a jungle. Set up base, stay alive for a week. Sometimes they'd be teamed up to play war games or track a demon. Sometimes Maggie would come, spend the night.

One morning, they waded out into the shallows, stripped down and glistening with sunblock. She stood behind him, showed him how to hold the spear so your arm wouldn't cramp, how to let the water hold you up, how to keep utterly still. Waves lapping against their thighs, her breath on the back of his neck, sand under their bare feet. The silent thrust at a dart of silver. He built a fire and grilled them, Maggie sprawled on the sand, telling him stories about the covert ops she'd been on back in the 80's round here. Perfect day.

He misses her. He thought he'd miss Buffy, but maybe that's still too raw. He turns it over in his mind, pictures her face, the last fight they had. Like remembering a book he'd read, a film he'd seen long ago.

Instead, he's been thinking about Maggie. They all have. Maggie's boys together again. Three down, wrapped and set alight the morning after the crash. Sam, Mark and Todd. He'd shot Mark when it was clearly too late for him. Graham letting the medic box fall to the ground, standing there, staring while Riley put a neat hole through Mark's head.

No argument afterwards. Just the two of them silently picking up the scattered antibiotics, and he was Agent Finn again.

One fish. He spears it, slips it into the string bag still struggling. Another. Three.

Six days and no planes overhead. He's been wondering about that. Satellites must be picking up the crash site, the burn patterns as the demons make their way across the valley. He's pretty sure all the missionaries are dead. Something in the valley's keeping the demons here. Probably some damn portal, a shrine or another fascinating example of demon culture.

Maggie wouldn't have cared. "Burn them," she would've said. "Napalm the valley, burn it to the ground."

He's not so sure about that these days. He knows demons aren't necessarily demons, that it's not all simple equations. Probably the pack of Mayan jaguar Groyens would make delightful dinner partners, except for the wanting to eat you part.

What he's not sure about is that Maggie saw things in black or white. That she didn't know about vampires with souls, half-breed demons and monsters trying to save the world.

He helped out a couple of times. He never told Buffy about that. Basic medic training, enough to let him hand over a scalpel and it was a steady hand needed, really. Cutting off the tops of skulls and watching Maggie work. She'd get a furrow between her eyes, a look of utter focus and calm. Naming the parts in a soft voice, reeling off chunks of xenobiology that he'd better damn well remember. Speech center, secondary brain, the claws are made of what, Finn?

When he saw Adam, when the chips went off and he couldn't move, couldn't do anything but wait for the next command - he knew Maggie had done this to him. Thirteen operations for a damaged knee, in hindsight, was a little excessive medically. She was even more brilliant than he'd thought.

He didn't tell the others how much it had hurt to watch Adam die. The Initiative buried and forgotten. It was like leaving Iowa all over again. One family to the next, and you just forgot and moved on.

Adam had Maggie's way of talking. The same sense of humour.

Four fish. This one's got a streak of blue across its silver sides, as vivid as the sky. He tosses it back, settles to wait.

Last night, in their tent, Graham had whispered, "Did you miss us?" and he'd nodded. Buried his face against the familiar shoulder, the scent of home, the taste of home. Tangled up inside and coming loose with Graham. He'd forgotten the way they fit together, the same height, the same bodies.

Stripping to change into military gear before they got on the plane, Graham had leaned against the wall and watched. Arms folded, eyes narrow. Riley didn't try to hide the scars. Folded his turtleneck, straightened up and lifted his head to the side, run his fingers along his neck, down his collarbone. Held out his arms silently, the weals at his elbows still sticky with broken scabs.

Graham bandaged the cuts, plasters on his neck and slipped an extra tube of antiseptic into his pack. Ran his hand along his neck, flat-palmed, warm dry hands. He'd shivered at the touch, and Graham had said nothing.

Home's the place where they have to take you in.

Orphans, and he knows the rest of Maggie's boys are still in uniform, getting high on adrenaline. Drugs they can come off, but Maggie trained them better than that. Seven years with one woman, and they've all still got the Initiative dog-tags she gave them. He kept his in his bottom drawer, rolled up in his socks.

Three more fish in rapid succession. Breathe out, spear, breathe in. He threads the spear back through his belt, climbs back up. Sun's slipped another hour west.

He remembers how terrified he was of Maggie the first time he met her. Seventeen, top of his unit and desperate for a college scholarship, then desperate to make her proud of him. The first time he'd seen a demon, he'd thrown up in terror after his team had brought it down, and Maggie yelled at him, ordered him onto his feet, back in the fight against the others.

Maggie next to him that night in Brazil. She'd been his first, and it had only been once, but when he was with a girl, she always felt too small.

It's chain of command, and honour, and trusting your superior officer, and just being a soldier. Eight years learning to obey and then how to give commands; Buffy still thinks he left because he grew out of being Army Boy.

He left because Maggie was dead. A year's leave because the military doesn't throw away their finest even if, as Graham politely puts it, they get pussy-whipped and run away. He always knew he'd go back, just thought he'd last a little longer.

"Riley!"

He walks to the edge of the rock and sees Graham waiting below. He's holding one of the radio units. Ming's been working on the airplane equipment, trying to boost the signal. Graham's grinning ear-to-ear. Good.

"They're sending in back-up. Should get here by tomorrow, extra weaponry and air-support."

He climbs down, jumps the last few feet. Wipes the sweat off his face and kisses Graham, slow and hard.

He doesn't need to know why these demons have to be wiped out. Maybe they're threatening the world, maybe they pissed off the local CIA goons. Marines don't question. They do their jobs. One of them falls, another steps in place, and he thinks that's what Slayers were meant to do. He's heard about why Giles' got fired. Watcher Council's got nothing on the Army.

He hasn't got a Slayer's reflexes or strength, hasn't even got the drugs anymore. Steroids and some enhancements that he gladly takes, but it comes down to human strength and high-tech weapons against all the demons that don't live in Sunnydale. He's pretty sure he'll die soon.

So he lengthens the kiss. Wraps his arms round Graham, holds him close and lets the sun warm his skin.


End file.
